good government

On textbooks, midterm blues, and other truths of social justice

Warning: contains elephants in rooms.

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Appendix to THE RULES (2016)

There’s one other thing, not in THE RULES proper but on any syllabus this year.

Not this, tempting though it is as a reminder of what a university is and what it is not:

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(Dublin 1917: after the failed 1916 uprising, in the middle of World War I, a quintessential distillation of the colonial-imperialist-military-industrial complex)

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Credo (2): Mashup remix: #4wordpedagogy + #UBC100


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Credo for universal lifelong higher education (1)

This post is essentially a statement of teaching philosophy, as academic outreach, most of which originally appeared as Tweets. It is also a contribution to #UBC100. I do not have much to give. I am not financially wealthy. But I can offer other riches—as can any faculty and many other members of the universitas that is the university community—riches beyond a banker’s wildest dreams or a property magnate’s most far-sighted imaginative speculations.

A statement of teaching philosophy, then.

Or: what is the point of it all?

Or: why am I here?

Or: why are we all here?

Or indeed: why am I?
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@UBC Faculty Association motion of no confidence in Board of Governors carries

 

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Further to a series of unfortunate events that had taken place from August 2015 onwards, and particularly in reaction to the accidental release of documents at the end of January 2016, a motion of no confidence in the UBC Board of Governors was brought to members of the Faculty Association.  (more…)

Fore and aft of the @UBC Faculty Association NO CONFIDENCE in the #UBCBoG meeting (2): from the afternoon of 2016-03-22 onwards

Continuation of Twitter collage, from after the Faculty Association meeting up to the evening of 2016-03-26:


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Fore and aft of the @UBC Faculty Association NO CONFIDENCE in the #UBCBoG meeting (1): up to the morning of 2016-03-22

Here is a sequence of Twitter screenshots (all public and still there), some content of which had already appeared on here, some of which would later.

Like all my scholarly activity, my Twitter reading and writing also includes Medievalism and the Humanities in general; I’m also working on two translations and on debate-poetry and satire, and in process of preparing (and therefore thinking about) courses I am teaching next year on the liberal arts (300-level Medieval Studies) and the bande dessinée / graphic novel & other cartoons in French (300-level French literature & culture). As often happens, apparently distinct and distant threads will cross, sometimes interweave, create interference and convergence patterns and rhythms, and may resonate or harmonise. Allusive, analogical, architectural. All part of the creative process.

CAVEAT: some items are out of order; in process of fixing that.


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I’m voting NO CONFIDENCE in the UBC Board of Governors (3a, the long version)

Here are the notes I prepared for speaking to the motion I was seconding today, at a Special General Meeting of the UBC Faculty Association, with the addition of comments: mostly back-up development of points / arguments from post (1) in this present series, and back-up evidence excerpted from post (2).

Comments added with reference to today’s meeting and discussion are in [square brackets]. The original text in post (3) is in italics.

I should add in preface that these remarks are simply a statement of how I came to this position. If they help others in making a decision—whatever that decision might be—that is all to the good and they will have served their purpose. (more…)

I’m voting NO CONFIDENCE in the UBC Board of Governors: here’s why (3)

These are the notes I prepared for speaking to the motion I was seconding today, at a Special General Meeting of the UBC Faculty Association. The main body of text below is the raw form: I may have added things when actually speaking, I removed one thing because I realised it was redundant.

… and here’s why (3a, the long version) = the notes following below with the addition of comments (demarcated from original text here): back-up development of points / arguments from post (1) in this present series; back-up evidence excerpted from post (2); and comments added with reference to today’s meeting and discussion.
(2016-03-22) (more…)

Resources & readings on the UBC governance matters

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This post shares the main things that I’ve been reading regularly over the last several months for contributions to commentary, analysis, and critique. As well as news coverage itself. (more…)